The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, the approaches described in this section may not be prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
The proliferation of communications networks, and in particular the Internet, has raised growing concerns about the security of information transmitted over networks. Numerous protection schemes have been implemented to secure electronic documents transmitted over the Internet, ranging from simple passwords to strong encryption. Some printing devices are configured with a feature known as “locked printing” to provide control over the printing of electronic documents. When a printing device is configured with a locked printing feature and print data is sent to the printing device, a printed version of an electronic document reflected in the print data is not generated until a user is verified at the printing device. Typically a user enters authentication data, such as a password, through an operation panel on the printing device. The printing device verifies the authentication data and if the authentication data is successfully verified, allows a printed version of the electronic document reflected in the print data to be generated, i.e., printed.
One of the problems with conventional locked printing approaches is that the documents stored on a printing device are susceptible to unauthorized access by third parties. Locke print documents are conventionally stored on a printing device until an authorized user prints the locked print electronic documents. During that time, an unauthorized third party may attempt to enter valid authentication data and gain access to the locked print data stored on the printing device. This is particularly problematic in situations where the locked print data contains sensitive information.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for an approach for securely printing electronic documents that does not suffer from limitations of prior approaches.